Books waiting on my shelf

These are hectic days for me. The Board Exams are around the corner and that means feverish revisions, completing project works, model exams, and paper valuations. So my reading has become the first casualty. A Man Called Ove, the book I started reading last month remains half-read on my table. It’s a delightful book about a 59-year-old man who belongs to the species that “checks the status of all things by giving them a good kick.” I discovered something of me in him and hence began to hate him as much as love him. Something of my old self, I should correct myself. I am not a quarter as grumpy as Ove now though I tend to share his view, occasionally at least, that most people are banal if not idiotic. Return I will with a renewed passion as soon as I complete preparing the next model question paper, check the project works, and then check the model answer sheets.

The next book waiting is a 1000-page mammoth of a book which I bought just because I once knew the author personally and the book is about Khasis, the people of Shillong where I lived the most miserable years of my life. Funeral Nights by Kynpham Singh Nongkynrih. I ordered for the book on an impulse and when it did reach me its size intimidated me. But I will definitely read it, maybe during the summer vacation. [My principal says there is no summer vacation this time because CBSE is holding the Board exams in those days precisely.]

A student of mine brought me another massive novel, Gone with the Wind, last week and I have kept it in school itself. I started reading this bestseller of a century ago during free time at school which is not much. It’s going to take time too with its 1100 or so pages. But I always wanted to read this novel which was a hit in print as well as the movie version. When the student asked me whether I hadn’t read it, I wondered too how it had escaped me.

The last one in this list is a novel by celebrated Malayalam writer K R Meera. Ghathakan [Murderer] is the book which is about contemporary politics. Who is the murderer? The question becomes synonymous with ‘What is truth?’ in Meera’s great work. I am impatiently waiting to get to Meera.

Then there’s a book that I haven’t bought yet. Let me wait until I complete these and these are going to take time. The book that’s waiting for me out there is My Son’s Inheritance: A secret history of lynching and blood justice in India by historian Aparna Vaidik. That non-violence is the essence of India’s culture is just another of those millions of lies we are brought up on. “The essence of Indian culture is also violence,” says Vaidik in the book. India has bequeathed violence from generation to generation and we call it dharma yuddha. But we needn’t tether ourselves to any inheritance, Vaidik assures us. “You are free to choose the elements of your inheritance that you wish to own, to discard, to celebrate, or even to fight.” That’s nice. There’s a lot of inheritance that contemporary India can unlearn, modify, or even just give up.